


lovemaps

by gossamerguilt



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Bi, F/F, Gay, Lesbian, Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:27:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27740743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gossamerguilt/pseuds/gossamerguilt
Summary: Jemily love story from Emily's POV. Maeve's death landed Reid in therapy where he was forced to confront certain unpleasant realities. He bottles these fears up till one late night on the jet he breaks down in front of Emily. Emily recalls him the story of how she and JJ fell in love to console him.P.S. Please criticise my writing drag it through the mud I thrive on dysfunctionP.P.S. I know it sure vague right know but I promise Prentiss and Reid won't fall in love I just arafaghahaah I don't want to give away the ending I just promise it's not thatP.P.P.S. I can't upload any photos at all except for some random screenshot from ladybird I'm trying to fix it I just don't understanding computers lolP.P.P.P.S. I'm bilingual so sorry if my grammar is weird
Relationships: JEmily, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Emily Prentiss, Spencer and Maeve
Kudos: 8





	1. one

After Meave's death Hotch sent Reid to five mandatory therapy sessions. Reid had always been reluctant to discuss his personal life and so it took him till the fifth and final session to truly open up to his therapist, one Dr. Ruth Bradley. The session ended with Reid feeling more flustered than he had previously thought humanly possible, though he had made some major breakthroughs.

The team spent a long week in Seattle working tirelessly on a grueling case. Still, on the jet back home it seemed to Emily that sleep was the last thing on Dr. Spencer Reid's mind. The rest of the team had fallen asleep as soon as the chance presented itself, but Emily had a book she had been meaning to read and if her years of traveling had thought her anything, it was how to manipulate her body clock with a couple cups of coffee. She had settled down comfortably in a dimly lit corner, far away from the others so as not to wake anyone. She could feel herself getting lost in the novel jj had recommended to her when she was jerked out her trance by a shin bumping into her seat. She looked up to see an agitated Reid pacing fretfully up and down the aisle of the jet. He hadn't noticed Emily stirring in her corner, even though he was standing mere inches from her. Emily could see from the hollow look in his eyes that his mind was somewhere far, far away.

Emily calls out to Reid softly. She tells herself it's because she doesn't want to risk startling her sleeping coworkers but really it's Reid she doesn't want to startle. He seems so distant that it's almost as if he's sleepwalking, and Prentiss knows the danger waking a sleepwalker poses. Reid blinks and as his eyes regain their focus, Emily is relieved to see she had nothing to worry about. Reid scurries over to her. 

"Is something the matter ?" Reid asks "That's what I'm trying to figure out." Prentiss answers. Her expression is stern but she lets out a gentle chuckle at Reid's readiness to help when it's clear he hasn't clue what she's asking of him. "hmm?" says Reid, trying to deflect Emily's prying eyes from his. "Reid" Emily says. Her tone is in no way threatening, but Spencer knows she won't be letting this go any time soon " I'm just tired that's all" Spencer mumbles in an attempt to seem his usual self "Reid" Emily repeats, her voice sounding almost pitying "Fine" says Reid with an exasperated sigh. He knew Emily could see through him with ease but he figured it was worth a shot. "Emily?" Reid asks, moving to sit in the chair opposite her. " What is it Spence?" Emily probes. 

She's so distracted trying to determine what could have upset him this much that she doesn't notice how croaky his voice has become till he's almost choking for lack of oxygen "do you think I'll ever be in love again" Reid asks weakly, knowing he won't be calmed by any answer Emily could give him. He feels pathetically vulnerable as his eyes fill with desperation and tears, and something that looks almost like shame. "Oh Spencer!" Emily cries out, pulling him into her arms as he struggles to steady his fractured breathing.


	2. two

Emily holds Reid head against her shoulder and she smooths his hair flat with her palm of her hand. She breathes in and out louder than necessary in the hopes that Reid's breathing will steady to mirror hers. These attempts so soothe Spencer are instinctive to her, somebody must have calmed a young Emily Prentiss in this manner, but she could be certain that somebody wasn't her mother. Emily's youth was monitored by a string of nannies, though she had only ever felt calm with one. Her name was Esther, and she used to tell Emily stories about a little boy named David. Emily never really understood these stories but that didn't matter, Esther didn't need her to. All Esther wanted from little Emily was the knowledge that Emily felt secure in her arms.

Emily's mind is snapped out of this bittersweet reminiscing when Reid begins to stir. He is shocked at how vulnerable he has made himself, but he can't seem to find the strength to be embarrassed by it. He moves to the sit across from Prentiss, but manages to does so without once turning his back on her. Emily readjusts herself, cracking her knuckles as she shifts to look at Spence

"We've got to talk about it", Emily says. Reid nods, but he lets out a gentle sigh as he does. "I can't leave this job, Emily" Reid states "And I know it doesn't make any sense but i feel like maybe this job is all I can have, like maybe it's consumed me to the point where it controls who I love." Spencer bows his head in embarrassment and stares at the scuff marks on his shoes. Emily gives him a minute before bending down to meet his eyes so as to regain his attention. "Spencer," she says "even I remember how love maps form, and my memory certainly cannot compare to yours" Reid barely even registered this as a compliment, but still Emily's lighthearted tone made him feel a little better. "The way you love won't change because of a job you get when you're twenty, Spence." Reid pauses for a split second to gather his thoughts before he begins. "But surely whatever led me to this job was instilled in me when I was little, and whatever that something was could easily do just that." 

Prentiss looks at Spencer with pity and with recognition. She hadn't realized it back then, but there was a time when Emily felt this exact way about her future. Emily can tell that emotion is begining to blind her judgement. She feels her inhibition come crumbling down as Spencer's weak, steady sobs quickly tear down the walls she had worked so very hard to buil up. She lets herself slip away into her memories as prepares herself to recall a story she never thought she would tell.


	3. three

"Reid" Emily says assertively "the bad things, or more specifically the lack of good things, that happen to us when we're children, only make us search for those very same good things in our futures." Spencer nods his head obediently, but its clear these words hold no more meaning to him than the paragraphs he memorised from his psychology textbook. They were just facts, statistics, and it wasn't of course that he didn't believe in the statistics, if anything he trusted statistics more than he did people, it was just that they seemed distanced from his life, like they only really happened to other people. He tries to disguise these emotions from Emily but Prentiss can read the boy-wonder like a book, in fact she had already anticipated this reaction, and she knew she would have to relate these to their own reality for them to help.

"Reid, ever since I was very young, my life has felt hectic. Everything I had, every new place that my mother was stationed in, was taken away from me before I could really grow into it. Even after I moved here permanently, I was always on edge, always afraid to love in case what I loved was suddenly ripped out from under me. Even in my own apartment I felt just a little uneasy. It was as if I was constantly treading water, and there was nowhere in the world where I could be still." 

Emily glances at Reid, she hadn't even realised it, but her gaze had shifted away from him and towards the window. The sky was pitch black, save for a peppering of bright white stars. As Emily turns back she registers Spence's bewildered expression. She can't help but chuckle softly, realising that she was supposed to give Spencer a tale of comfort, but so far all he's been given is a sob story. "I promise it gets better," she says with a subtle grin. Reid smirks back at her. He can't quite tell where this story is going but he's glad to know it'll have a happy ending.

Emily's head turns to face the window again. She swings her legs around so that her torso is no longer twisted and digs her toes into the gap between her chair and the arm rest. Her socks are slippy against its soft leather. She hugs her knees to her chest and rests her chin in the notch between them. Her face takes on a wistful expression as she remembers the first time she felt truly still.


	4. four

*this is the story Emily tells Reid but its from the third person because I just prefer to write in the third person and it seems to be easier for you guys to follow*

Emily Prentiss had been sitting outside the director's for what felt like hours. She was shivering in the cool English weather. She hadn't anticipated how cold it would be here in spring, and so that mouring she had chosen a red tanktop instead of the shirts and suits her colleagues wisely wore. She had been called over from Russia with a call from her mother a couple days ago. Her mom had mentioned something about arms smuggling and the IRA, but apart from that Emily was totally in the dark.

" Ms. Prentiss ?"

Emily whipped her head around at the sound of her name. A tall woman was peeking her head out of the director's office door. 

"That's me," Emily said with a nod of her head. She tried her best to keep her expression serious but when the tall woman flashed her a grin as she slipped past her into the office, she couldn't help but curl her lips into a subtle smile.

"Hello Emily" the director said, reaching across his desk to offer Emily a firm handshake.

"Hello Director" Emily said, bowing her head slightly before looking back up to meet his's gaze.

"Please, call me Philip" 

"Philip" Emily nodded as took a seat right across from him.

"Now Emily," Philip said, his voice quickly adopting a more serious tone. "I'm sure you're aware of the current political situation in Northern Ireland." 

"Of course" Emily replied. Her work in Interpol had made her well aware of all sorts of global conflicts that were happening at the moment, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland between the Unionists and the Loyalists were something that had been consistently on Interpol's radar for quite some time now. She of course knew what both sides were fighting for, though she had a feeling any Interpol involvement would only be in an attempt to stop the bloodshed, and that she wouldn't be helping either side in their endeavors to fight. 

"Well, we have reason to believe that there is illegal arms smuggling going at the border, so we intend to send a few agents down there to pose undercover as arms dealers and figure out if we have cause for an arrest ."

Emily stopped for a minute to think about what was being asked of her. They wanted her to be one of the agents who went undercover, that part was obvious. What had actually bugged her about the director's proposition was that she knew she'd be doing more than just selling a Glock to a couple of rebellious kids. These people were terrorists. Besides, the whole smuggling arms thing was just a front, an excuse that could get them close enough to bombers to try and put a halt to all the deaths. 

"Is that all you want me to do?" Emily said , trying to seem professional and ignore the fact that if she weren't already sitting down her legs might just have buckled underneath her.

"Well, not exactly" The director said with a slight falter in his voice. His eyes darted across the room to the door, as though he was making double-sure that nobody might overhear them. "We want you to profile the bombers" He said sharply, as if by getting the words out quicker they wouldn't have such a devastating effect on the poor girl he sought to recruit. 

Emily's head felt like it might catch fire. These people wanted her to get close enough to a group of terrorists that she would be able to profile them. Terrorists. Emily let the word play over and over again in her mind, like a broken record. She thought about all the horrors she'd seen on TV, about all the unthinkable torture these guys would put her through if they found out she was a mole. 

Then she remembered something she'd read in a newspaper a while back, about how children in these types of places have grown so accustomed to living in terror that if you tell them that the reason a road is blocked off because somebody's house got blown up by a bomb they were sent in the mail, none of them will even bat an eyelid. 

"I'll do it." Emily said suddenly, with a conviction in her voice that seemed to be there more to reassure herself that she believed the words coming out of her mouth than it was to convince the director.


	5. five

Emily looked up at the woman sitting across from her. Her mind had been totally unfocused for the last five minutes, ever since she agreed to take part in this mission. The woman didn't seem to mind. In fact it seemed like she was used to this kind of reaction. She gave Emily a moment to pause and take in her surroundings before she decided to give her the breakdown on their new mission. 

Emily found her self in a dimly lit library sitting in a velvety green armchair. The room smelled of dust and old varnish. The walls around her seemed to stretch all the way up to the moon, and every few metres there was a wooden ladder leaning against the bookshelves. The floors were a dark wood, maybe wych elm. The table between Emily and the woman seemed to have stripes of ash running through it. It reminded Em of a piano her grandmother used to play, a baby grand made from macassar ebony .

Emily took in to the woman sat in the chair in front of her. Her body was tall and clearly toned, but her face was anything but conventional. Her skin was fair and her hair fell in dark ringlets, reaching only to the tip of her neck and curling up slightly around her ears. Her brows were sharp and sculpted, while her eyes were soft and round. Her eyelids were slightly hooded and her lashes were long, but they curled out instead of up, giving her an almost cat-like appearance. Her eyes were a hazy grey, like misty tea left out in the rain. Her nose was defined, like that of a sculpture Emily had seen in a Roman museum she visited when she was little. Her lips were stained a red so dark they was almost crimson. She had a sharp cupid's bow, and her lips were prominent even from the side, shaped almost like a love-heart.

Emily was snapped out of her observations by a soft cough from the woman. Emily presumed the woman had grown tired of her wandering gaze, but when she looked up the woman seemed to me smiling at her.

"My name is Viktoria." The woman said, extending her fingers around Emily's and locking her into a firm handshake. 

"I'm Emily" Emily replied as Viktoria's grip on her slackened.

"Well Emily," Viktoria said with a devilish grin. "I'm afraid you won't be hearing that name again for quite some time.

Emily's head tilted slightly and her brows furrowed with confusion.

Viktoria smiled at Emily's bewilderment before quickly regaining her composure. "It's nothing but a security measure darling, to get you used to your new alias of course." 

Emily blinked vacantly at her for a few seconds before remembering that all this undercover-stuff was probably totally normal to Viktoria, and if she wanted to fit in she was gonna have to act like she was totally cool with it too.

"Your new name will be Lauren Reynolds, and it's very important that I get you used to it, so I will try my hardest not to use any pet names till the operation is over. Is that all right with you, drágám ?

Emily blushed at Viktoria's not-so-subtle petname. She'd have to google what it meant when she got home though, because right now she wasn't even sure what language the woman was speaking. 

That night, Emily was lying awake in her bed, struggling to fall asleep after getting carried away while watching a re-run of Twin Peaks and accidentally of downing three cans of redbull. While her mind was drifting away into another one of her weird dreams that always seem to with somebody murdering her, she decided that even though this mission still seemed like a total death wish, maybe spending a few weeks training with Viktoria wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.


End file.
